observations from the intersection of religion, science, politics, and culture.

2.22.2011

Why Do Creationists Play The Hitler Card?

Sid Galloway speaking at LSU

Creationists love to play the Hitler card when critiquing the theory of evolution. Ken Ham, of the Creation Museum, loves to bring up Hitler when discussing Darwin. It is tirelessly trotted out in court cases deciding whether or not Creationism should be taught in school. The argument essentially is an effort to vilify the teaching of evolution by linking Darwin, and his conception of natural selection, to Nazi eugenics efforts.

I was reading an article in LSU's Daily Reveille, published on Sunday, about Sid Galloway presenting his "Evidence — Answers Seminar" at the Chapel on the Campus. In his seminar, Galloway, who is a zookeeper, a biology teacher, and a family counselor, suggested that evolution fuels racism, stating:

Galloway, who believes the universe is thousands of years old, not billions, said evolution directly contradicts Christianity, because suffering would have existed in the world long before Adam and Eve bit into forbidden fruit. "They cannot both be in harmony," he maintained. "They are incompatible."
The use of the Hitler card, when critiquing evolution, is not unlike the mudslinging in political campaign seasons. It is a tactic used to distract and to sully by association. The difference here is that whether or not Darwin's theory of evolution inspired Hitler, it does absolutely nothing to detract from the soundness of the theory.

Imagine a seminar being given by a figure who denied the germ theory of disease. Suppose this figure stated that Agostino Bassi's and Girolamo Fracastoro's work on this theory inspired the weaponization of tularemia, anthrax, brucellosis, and botulism toxin. Sure, this is an ugly, destructive application of the concepts of the theory, but is anyone less likely as a result to believe that the germ theory of disease is sound?

Is the theory of gravity any less true, or less palatable, because millions of people have put to death by hanging?

Like the politicians that sling mud during campaign season, the Creationists who use this tactic only draw attention to their own desperation, slinging mud against the wall in hopes that something sticks.